Yeah, I built myself a (non-mac) computer in 2003 for about $1,000, and am using it as I write this. I wouldn't have set aside that money to buy Apple stock, and I have no idea the stock value of the various component vendors (the intel components were a few hundred at most).

If you're going to buy a computer anyway, you'd be measuring the Apple anyway, not the entire product cost. That is, if an equivalent Apple machine cost $1,500, then the money I could have spent on Apple stock by building my own is $500, not $1,500.